


Ginger-Induced Fever Dreams

by lunaseemoony



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alcohol, Drunk Doctor (Doctor Who), F/M, Festivals, Hurt/Comfort, Pregnancy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 02:02:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4122000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaseemoony/pseuds/lunaseemoony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rose tells the Doctor the truth about the source of their illness he recalls a dream that he then learns is real. It sheds light on a perilous mistake that he’d made when he thought it was all a fever dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ginger-Induced Fever Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> For chrismata1976, who asked for baby!fic with the Doctor having pregnancy symptoms. 
> 
> There is a bit of very mild dub-con in this fic.

“I can't believe you got sick all over the emperor!” Rose hollered as she stumbled into the TARDIS, crashing onto the jump seat. She rolled onto it and held in her aching sides as she cackled into the coral rafters.

Her green-in-the-gills companion marched in after her and cleared his throat while shoving his specs onto his nose, wrinkling his mouth in contempt. “Could have happened to anyone,” the Doctor defended in a mumble.

Rose's sides aching never felt so cathartic, heaving for breath never felt so _delicious_ , even at the expense of the poor Doctor. She took a few even breaths before bursting into one more guffaw when looking at the Doctor's pale and peaky face. His normally foxy brown freckles turned an odd sort of gray-brown, like a dead leaf falling from a tree. He wilted over the console, coated in a grimace. Of course she was sympathetic. Really, she was.

“But it didn't, mister high and mighty superior Time Lord physiology,” Rose teased with an open-mouthed, self-satisfied grin as she kicked her feet back and forth waiting for him to get the TARDIS into gear. “It happened to _you_.”

“Oi, never said I was perfect,” he mumbled into the screen before looking up. “Did you see his face though? Messiest getaway in a long time, I'd say. Though there was that one time with the bananas...”

“I think we caught a virus along the way somewhere.” Well, _he_ probably caught a virus along the way somewhere. “I've been feeling a bit peaky myself. It'll pass in a few days, yeah?”

“Yeah, probably,” he agreed before screwing his face in contemplation. “But from _where_?” He pursed his lips in a pout and rubbed his chin before shrugging. “Dunno how you humans cope, though. My stomach feels like like a blender right now.”

Rose's optimism didn't translate into the truth. His virus went on for another week, unusual for the man that boasted about having the most superior immune system. Wondering what was going on with the Doctor at least gave her an excuse to ignore what was going on in her own life. It was plenty important, mind, but there was no easy way to talk with the Doctor about it (certainly not when he was hunched over voiding his stomach of his efforts to soothe it).

It wasn't often that the Doctor came down with an illness. But when he did, Rose learned that he liked to hide it if it wasn't debilitating. He schooled his emotions better than anyone she knew. At times Rose contemplated asking them to make a trip to Las Vegas to enter a professional poker tournament. Her leather-clad Doctor that wore his emotions on his sleeves had been long since replaced with the brooding hedgehog who hid himself behind winks and smiles. But since his first bout of sickness, everywhere they went he became an emotional wreck.

The unpredictability was a new and interesting turn of events, but it was exhausting. On one occasion the Doctor practically jumped down Rose's throat for pressing the wrong button on his sonic. A few days later he sat through one of her tear-jerking romantic dramas (and cried a lot more than she did, mind you). As comical as all of this was, surreal even, Rose very quickly grew impatient with it. She hadn't signed on with a hormonal teenage girl. She wanted her aloof Doctor, the one that didn't whine about his belt not sitting right or count the days of his ongoing stomach virus.

There was only room for one of them to be a wreck, Rose told herself. It was the perfect distraction anyway. No matter what was going on in her life, it was his turn. Not that they kept count. But she'd been there for him when he became depressed after they left 18th century France. A night or two afterward he crept into her darkened room in the middle of the night. He whispered to her in the privacy of her bed how much he needed her. As angry as she felt with herself for giving in to him, he paid her back when she fell into a similar slump after they left Mickey behind. He didn't make her feel like a blubbering idiot as she let her unbidden tears melt into his chest. He was silent, hearts strumming smooth beats into her ears until they brought her into a peaceful sleep. It was only a month after this that the Doctor fell into his illness. And no matter how much Rose's insides were making their own attempts at performing an exorcism on themselves, it was the Doctor's turn to feel her support.

So she supported him. Rose rubbed the Doctor's back as he returned meals that she cooked for him (thinking they were mild enough for him to stomach). She dealt with his fierce mood changes. But after the third week of it and the sudden onset of fatigue, she became concerned. Now before one might accuse her of being blind or negligent, she _did_ have her own troubles to deal with. Taking care of herself while traveling with the Doctor was difficult enough when she felt in control of her own health and her own life. This was assuming that the Doctor was taking care of himself, which he seldom did to begin with. Her mum was right, the man was completely useless when it came to his own health.

“This just doesn't make any sense, Rose,” the Doctor grumbled one morning as Rose stepped out of her ensuite in a dressing gown toweling her hair dry.

She jumped, and held her gown to keep it from falling apart as she stumbled back. “What are you doing in here?! Doctor!”

Well, she knew what he was doing, actually. She just couldn't believe it. The Doctor was standing in front of her full length mirror frowning at himself as he rubbed his hands along his chest. It reminded her of when she was in school, just starting puberty and desperately hoping to grow a lot faster than she was. Except the Doctor wasn't a depressed or hopeful young girl, just confused. At least he was clothed, she thought. Thank god he was clothed. He pulled his jacket back and held his hips as he turned on his heels a few times, then tugging at his trousers a little.

“I can't be gaining weight. That makes no sense.”

“Doctor!” Rose growled, and hugged her chest, feeling exposed. Her wearing a dressing gown was incidental, because the room was cold that morning. Normally she wore nothing out of the shower. She wouldn't have a need to.

“You've got a good mirror. I needed to see something.”

Rose couldn't be too cross with him when he was treating her to a sight she'd probably never witness again. The Doctor shrugged off his jacket and smoothed his hands over his oxford, tightening the fabric against his frame. He rubbed at his chest again and whimpered. Rose squinted at him, hoping that if she squeezed her eyes hard enough that the sight in front of her would evaporate into her subconscious and she'd wake up. No such luck.

“I mean, it's not normal for a man's breasts to be sore, is it?”

Rose's towel fell from her hair to the floor, where her jaw would be if it wasn't hinged. She turned away from the Doctor and cleared her throat. But it might have been too late, she'd been standing in the reflection of the mirror. He probably saw her cheeks ripening, her chest quivering to accommodate its inhabitant's increased pace. She rolled her shoulders and hissed between breaths. It was easy for him, he didn't have to worry about being modest. He just didn't care most of the time.

“The TARDIS says nothing's wrong with me. But I might need to recalibrate her diagnostic systems. It can't be right. I just don't feel right. Not myself at all.”

He was at least partly himself. When he turned to look at her his fingers were raking rows through his hair, and he had that screwed up expression of contemplation plastered to his freckly face. It was very him. He even began to pace a little. Rose plopped herself on her bed and let her eyes become glued to the blue stripes of his brown suit as they rocked back and forth with the Doctor's anxious feet. He was mumbling to himself in his language, and counting on his fingers. Process of elimination, Rose guessed.

“Rose, I think I'm pregnant.”

In her daze, Rose was quite certain she misheard what he said. Surely he couldn't have..

“What?” she croaked.

“I think I might be pregnant,” the Doctor echoed with the same nonchalance as he did the first time. “I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it?”

Rose's mouth opened, but the first few sounds that she sputtered couldn't be called words when they were coated so thickly in confusion. “In.. in what way does that make sense?! You haven't got a..” Rose looked the Doctor up and down. He may have been swaying his hips in front of the mirror fretting over himself in the same way her mum did, but in all appearances he was still that foxy _man_ he'd regenerated into. But that was on the outside. “Wait.. Doctor, tell me you don't have a uterus..”

“Not in this body, no. I could, if I became a woman. Might be fun sometime, don't you think?” He grinned momentarily before returning to the question at hand.

“So then how can you be pregnant?”

She stood up and approached him, curiosity stronger than the twinge of slight repulsion rising in her gullet. They'd been everywhere, seen so much. Of all things he told her were possible anatomically, he never mentioned any of the female issues were applicable to himself.

He hummed a playful growl as he spoke, “Oh, any number of ways. I could be a host to some parasite that we picked up somewhere, could be pollination, there's that fruit we ate on Palmyra 12. Some of those fruits contain hormones necessary for sex change. Though I would still need to have -”

“Could it be from a human?” Rose gulped down a huge breath and expelled it with these words. There. She'd said it.

“Could be! That's possible, given the right conditions, yes, you might be on to some-”

She stepped closer to the Doctor, within the same breathing space, and muttered barely above a whisper, “Could it be me?” He didn't answer straight away, just stared down at her, expression unchanged from its twisted rumination. “I mean, you said that _you_ couldn't get _me_ pregnant, but.. and I'm not doubting you Doctor.. but could you maybe have been wrong?” She hiccuped and let her eyes dart to her vanity next to the mirror. “And then maybe.. I mean, I dunno how your anatomy works.. but could it go both ways?”

“Well, we would've had to have sex for that to be possible,” he retorted, unfazed by her words. His eyes followed hers to the vanity. He picked up a little pink box. “Oh! Now this could answer our questions, eh Rose? A pregnancy test! Should work on anyone, shouldn't it? Perfect! Oh, you _are_ brilliant!” He beamed, and kissed the top of her head. He turned the box over into his palm. “Huh, it's already been opened.” He looked in the box and hummed. “Oh, you've used it already? No matter, we can just pop into the infirmary and -”

As the Doctor was setting the box down on the vanity, he spotted it. The innocuous pink and white stick sat on the counter, well out in the open. He picked it up and studied it for a moment. They make the things stupidly simple, and a bit too feminine for her tastes. It was difficult to miss the bright pink plus sign, nor the ones on the three others that the test had been sitting next to.

“Oh Rose. You're pregnant!” He beamed and cheered. Suddenly the blood that had been flooding her cheeks and making her feet feel like they'd collapse from under her left her face all at once. “Is that.. _that's_ why you were upset about Mickey? You could have said.”

Rose buried her face in her hands. Truly her worst nightmare had been a sprinkle compared to the storm the Doctor was brewing up in her mind. “It's not Mick's,” she told her palms. “It's _yours_!”

He clawed at her wrists, trying to tug them away from her face. Even when they cuffed her wrists and held them at her sides she still looked away, a futile attempt at keeping him from seeing her already reddened eyes.

“How, Rose? What are you talking about?” He paused and waited for her to answer, eyes boring into her lids. But she couldn't look up.

His incredulity opened up her flood gates quicker than she could have ever imagined.

“You really don't remember,” she looked up at the Doctor, worry and confusion widening his deep brown eyes. “God, you really don't.. I thought you just didn't want to talk about it. Fuck..”

“Rose. Tell me what happened.” His hands wriggled down to hers and clasped them tight.

But not tightly enough. Rose broke free of them and bolted for the ensuite. “I can't do this!” she shouted from behind the locked door. Silly, really, given that he could unlock it with the press of a button. But she hoped, desperately, that he'd respect her privacy.

 

\-----------

 

The Doctor sank to the floor in front of the door and slumped over. Obviously he wasn't about to let Rose sit on the other side sobbing for long. She wouldn't willingly let him in if she could help it. He'd picked up _some_ knowledge from traveling with so many females over the years. He held her pregnancy test in his hand, staring at it as if it could reveal to him the entire truth. All it knew was that Rose was pregnant. Rose Tyler, his traveling companion, his delightfully single vixen, was pregnant. _Now_ he could smell it in the air, of course. _Now_ his morning sickness made sense, of course.

“Urgh!” He growled, and stomped the floor. “Grr, I'm so _thick_! Thickety-thick-thick-thick!” He threw the stupid piece of plastic across the room, letting it crash into Rose's bed. “Rose.. can I come in? I think I know what's happened.” He turned around and pawed at the door, willing his palm to reach through and stroke her shoulder (or any part of her, really).

“No you _don't_!”

“I know a little bit,” he spoke to her through the door. “Sympathetic pregnancy. Humans call it couvade syndrome. It's not something that normally translates to other species. But I'm a high level empath, so it affected me a bit differently.” He heard her snort through the door.

“You really think this is about you?”

He paused. “How long?”

“I don't want to talk to you right now.”

Something with the consistency of a hairbrush crashed at the door, and he jumped a bit.

“I've got a right to know, don't I?”

He heard her hiss and growl. “Oh, you've got a right! Ha! You've got some nerve, is what you've got, Doctor! You lied to me!”

He stood up and jiggled the handle of the ensuite door. Locked.

“You pull out that sonic and I'm never speaking to you again!” she threatened.

“You're barely speaking to me now! What're you going to do, shun me from in there until our child is born? Hm? Should I have the TARDIS bring a crib in there for you?”

His words tasted sour only after he spoke them. He wouldn't fault her for not speaking to him now. His idea of bursting in there and whisking her off her feet with his determination fell with his body to the floor, right back where he started. For several long, torturous minutes, he was arrested by silence and tension.

“Ten weeks,” he heard a muffled sigh from the other side of the door.

“Ten weeks..” he parroted. “Ten weeks.. what happened ten weeks ago? Oh, we went so many places..”

“Kyoto.. turn of the century. We were fighting -”

“The mowai!” he clapped his hands and growled in triumph. Wrong attitude. Right.

“The mowai infestation, yeah. And then we were gonna leave that same day, but you said we should stay the night for the summer festival.” Her voice sounded a lot calmer now, but also heartrendingly morose.

“Natsu matsuri.”

“That. We went to a tea ceremony. I wore a.. what did you call it..”

“A yukata,” he droned. “That wasn't a dream..?”

It all came flooding back to him at once, cruel as his mind was. He couldn't wait for the tea to cool, so after scalding his tongue, the Doctor couldn't taste the pure ginger in it. And after the first cup of tea, the inhibitions and alarm bells that would have told him to stop were trapped behind a thick cloud of ginger tipsiness. He did love the taste of ginger all the same, especially after his third and fourth cups.

But Rose stepping out onto deck in front of the family's garden just as the red sun was beginning to set behind her was a sight that became very clear in his memory when it came back to him.

Their hosts wouldn't be accused of being improper, and offered Rose one of their daughter's yukatas. She happened to be around Rose's age and size, and helped her into it. The hostess and her daughter had assumed that Rose was married to the Doctor, and dressed her accordingly. Rose had no way of knowing, and being the smug Time Lord that he was, he wasn't about to tell her why they'd tied her obi (sash) the way that they did. All the same, he'd never seen her looking so pure as she hobbled out onto the deck in her sandals and yukata, standing in front of the setting red sun before their vast garden. She was the very image of spring, wearing a white yukata that flowed in the breeze, making it look like the cherry blossoms speckling it were actually falling to her toes peeking out from the silken hem. His eyes kept traveling to her bare neck, his gold chain tickling her collarbone, and his key just barely peeking out above the folds of the fabric covering her breasts. He wanted to be those errant golden locks that escaped her messy bun to kiss the nape of her neck. How could he ever forget it all? How could he not _feel_ it being real? It felt like sin that her image that night wasn't ingrained, etched into his mind. Well, it was for certain now.

He felt an instant craving to touch her, to feel the blush on her cheeks that matched the pink on her yukata perfectly. Normally he'd keep this desire to himself and mull over it later. His inebriated self was having none of that. He stepped up to cup her cheek, making her blush even further into his palm. Not wanting to make her bare one feel jealous, he gave it a peck before they made for the festival proper.

It was a complete blur. He was certain there were games played, people met, him talking out of his arse for sure, and a bottle of sake shared between them at some stall. But he couldn't be completely certain. He was certain he had a good laugh over Rose enjoying the little clacking sounds that her sandals made on the ground. Faces were blank vaguely round shapes. But Rose's was perfectly vivid, filled with cheer as she scooped up a little goldfish in her net playing a child's game. Events passed with the blink of an eye. Except that the moments he'd held her hand in his, and braved another kiss on her gleefully blushed cheek. The only piece of certainty was Rose and her radiance, and that he was very inebriated. At least now he knew. Then he thought it was all a dream. But to her he could have merely been enjoying himself, just a bit of sake encouraging his silliness. He got a headache just thinking about alcohol and ginger mixing in his system. No wonder he didn't remember anything.

Even the fireworks they watched together, hand in hand, were nothing more than blurry bursts of light in his mind. Not that he was looking at them anyway. He'd seen so many fireworks in his time. He'd much rather admire _her_ watching the fireworks. The way the bursts and flashes of light lit up her face was dim in comparison to the fire that her sweet smile lit in his chest. He couldn't be certain, but he must have told Rose at least a few times that night how beautiful he thought she was. She was always beautiful, whether it was in period Japanese dress or in a pair of oversized jim jams with a nest of messy bedhead. He'd been asked before what his type was (most recently by a certain omnisexual). Rose was his type. Rose and her smile, her lips always as ripe as strawberries, that deliciously mild bit of skin under her ear, the most perfect junction between her shoulder and neck. Being stared at by the crowd around them because he was being a bit indecent. Maybe that last one wasn't so much his type.

He'd started it. He was responsible. The next memory that flooded his aching mind was of Rose's eyes reaching up to him. Oh, he'd always loved when she flashed him those doe eyes when she felt just slightly vulnerable. And it would suit her perfectly leaned up against the railing, with the backdrop of the ongoing fireworks show behind her. In his dazed memories her amber eyes were much brighter than the smokey stars behind her. But they weren't innocent, partly hidden behind a curtain of lashes, they were sultry, wicked, and his. None of it was nearly as wicked those lips that she often licked when she smiled. Or her hands, as they wrapped around his waist to bring him in closer (after she tossed her sandals). He wanted to capture them both, but opted for her lips first, what had brought them back to the manor in the first place.

It had to all be a dream. He knew they'd both had quite a bit of sake (probably too much), but the part of him that wouldn't normally be as affected by it – his better judgment – was trapped beneath the heavy ginger blanket. Never mind her incessant and insufferably adorable giggling. There was unabashed love in her eyes being flashed his way, more than just a flash! He wasn't quite so dim that he hadn't recognized it by now. He just had rules. Rules that – while his lips were locked with Rose's – he didn't give a damn about. It had to be a dream, he'd thought at the time. And if he was going to dream about being with Rose, he was going to do it right. Or he'd try to, at least.

“Is this okay?” he remembered her bleating into his neck as she began picking at the buttons to his oxford.

“Oh yes,” he growled. “Right here.”

“They could see us,” she whispered into his ear on a hot breath before giving it a little nibble.

“I'd like that.”

She extracted herself from his neck to grin up at him. “You can't be serious.”

“Oh yes. Right here. I want to see the fireworks,” he pressed his lips to hers, “as we feel them.”

He knew he had her when her knees buckled a little, and he caught her by her hips. He lifted her up onto the railing so she was level with him, and held her in place by her bum. The Doctor shuddered at the thought of his inebriated self being able to keep her balanced. It was a miracle she didn't fall back into the bed of white rocks below.

“Come on, live a little Rose Tyler.” He returned her wicked grin from earlier. “You want this.”

“What's gotten into you?”

A brief moment of hesitation. At least one of them had to be marginally present, even if evidently it hadn't lasted long. If only he hadn't insisted that none of it was real. Rose couldn't possibly be so weak to him. Surely the gasp she made when he nipped her lip and the purr she melted onto his tongue when it grazed hers were figments of his wild imagination.

“Well, that delicious tongue of yours for starters,” he replied with what he probably hoped was his boyish grin flashed her way. Apparently when he thought he was dreaming he came up with the worst one-liners.

Rose pushed him away as he let his forefinger slip under the collar of her yukata. “Protection,” she sighed, just a tiny wince squeaking through. “Are we.. compatible? You know, biologically?”

“Not like this. Is that okay?”

Not like this. Not in a dream, he'd meant. He'd told her both a truth and a lie. That didn't make what he'd done any less reprehensible. He'd tasted her wrist while they were fooling around. He got a good taste, too, because he discovered a lick on her pulse point there produced the sweetest little mewl from her swollen lips. He _knew_ she was ovulating. If it was any other man that had done this to Rose, the Doctor might have broken his code regarding violence.

She sighed relief. “Yeah, 's perfect. But.. not out here though, Doctor.” She pushed him away again as he leaned in to taste the bit of flesh beneath the TARDIS key, right were her defenseless breasts met. “I want you all to myself.”

He pouted his lip a little and chuckled. “Getting greedy now, are we, Miss Tyler?”

“For you? Yeah.”

“Whatever you want, then,” he conceded. Rassilon, was he ever desperate to get in her knickers. The Doctor cringed against the locked ensuite door.

Their guest room was only a few steps away, its door already slid open for them. A single lantern lit the whole room, the straw tatami floor, its minimal décor, and the little bed they'd be expected to share. He hoped they actually did. If he was going to break his own rules to bed Rose, he hoped that at some point it'd involve an actual bed, albeit a small and flat one.

Rose had him up against a wall first. And maybe it was just the way he remembered it, but her removal of his clothes was tortuously, deliciously slow. Taste. He closed his eyes in a very feeble and human attempt to remember it better, how she'd taken her sweet time. She made a comment about his soft chest hair as the last button on his oxford was undone. He recalled a certain part of his anatomy acting completely shameless in its attempts at getting her attention when she was all too slow at removing his belt. And really did she need to remove the belt? Was it a method of torture?

“Wait, wait, I want my turn too..” he grunted in a pout as her fingers slipped under the waistband to his pants. She was way too clothed for his tastes, never mind that he got a perfect view of her bosom as she knelt before him on the floor, gazing up at him with those sinfully golden brown eyes of hers.

“Not a chance,” she giggled.

It all had to be a fever dream. Really, it did. His skin sizzled, and not just where her delicate fingers graced it. Everything was pounding in his ears all at once: the fireworks outside, her pulse from her lips to the skin on his hips, the gentle lull of the stream in the garden, his own hearts hammering in his ears. He was certain he cried out her name. Oh he was sure that he did. But all he heard in his memories as her lips enveloped him were gulps, gasps and yelps.

“Do you know what you're doing to me?” he rasped between gulps. Curse his inebriated self for his horrible gob. He only got chattier when his barriers were down. Poor Rose.

“Pretty sure,” she mumbled onto his cock.

He clawed the walls as her teeth grazed his sensitive flesh. It sent a tingling shiver all the way up his scalp, where he found his head hunched over. But he trusted her. He always did. She knew what she was doing. Of course she did. In a matter of minutes, there weren't just fireworks going off outside. He felt this thought slipping into his consciousness as he collected memories. To his horror he spoke this thought aloud to her, and she giggled as she fell to the floor.

It all came back to him in fractured pieces. He was certain there were key moments between this giggling fit and him winding up sitting on the floor in just his unbuttoned oxford. At some point he (or she) took off his clothes. Maybe (he hoped) there was kissing in between, probably severe blushing on his part if he tasted himself on her slick tongue. What he did know was that Rose was happy, and he hoped that the sparks igniting between them were as real as the ones in the sky outside.

But she was eerily silent as the Doctor helped her undo a few of the layers of her yukata. Of course, these memories could have been manufactured, wishes for peaceful moments perhaps. He couldn't be certain, but he hoped her eyes following him were actually filled with admiration, that this wasn't just his imagination being cruel. She might not be too keen on knowing just how he learned to remove a woman's kimono, he mused.

“Leave it,” he murmured to her as she began to shrug out of the last layer, the yukata itself. “It looks beautiful on you, brings out all that gorgeous flushed skin.”

 _His_ Rose might have hugged the robe to herself upon hearing these words and meeting his intense scrutiny. Maybe she'd throw snide remark his way, turn the attention back on him. But the one in his “dream” simply giggled again and asked him if he was going to make her do all of the work that night. Please, he had to give her some happy memories to draw on later. Yes, he did! At least he guessed. The Doctor had her lie down on the bed, and he nestled up next to her, the straw tatami creaking under his excited movements.

Everything from there was vivid in his memory. It was no wonder he thought that he was dreaming when he could swear to tasting the sweet fire of the rice wine on her neck. When the silk white robe of her yukata fell away and he cupped a breast in his palm, she swore at him for his cold hands. But he only scarcely heard it, feeling her bud blossom beneath his skin. They were just as pink as cherry blossoms (though this part was probably an exaggeration on his part, if he even cared), but tasted like barely ripe peaches. Her blush certainly wasn't exaggerated when he shared these thoughts with her. He hummed a giggle onto her hips at rendering her speechless.

“Doctor,” she cooed his name. “Please..”

“Oh no, don't make me stop here,” he whinged. Ugh, the whinging, he cringed.

“I need you.”

Those few words were his to keep this time. That, and the feeling of her soft skin wiggling beneath him, a slippery fish he was all too eager to catch. And he did. He had a few short moments to catch her before she regained control. Good on his inebriated self for actually managing the task. She didn't resist him once his hands were massaging her thighs and his mouth cupping her damp sex. He wanted the memories that followed to fill his catalog of delicious Rose sounds. It was his golden opportunity. But she was silent save for a few squeaks and hitched breaths. Her muscles tightened further and further by each minute, no matter what he did to help her relax. Or maybe the memory of him gently hushing her and urging her to relax were imagined. Rassilon, was he actually _bad_ at this? He shuddered and buried his head in his hands as he looked in to other memories. He rather liked the one of her wrestling him onto his back. Well, he thought wrestle. It was more like her wriggling out from under him and flipping him. Who'd dare to fight her? Not this inebriated idiot.

“You're sure it's okay?” Rose asked as she straddled him.

“Your thighs are so soft, Rose,” he sighed, still licking her off his lips. She smacked his chest. “Yeah,” he grunted.

Perhaps there was a good reason he forgot all of this. He could do so much better for Rose. Rose deserved so much better than a drunk Doctor. Worse, she didn't even know that he was drunk. How could she accept him so intimately for who he was when he was being such an arse? Maybe he was being a bit harsh with himself given the situation he found himself in. Of course, he'd also been fighting for a good while an intense desire not to have sex with Rose, but to make love to her. It could have been so easy, if he wasn't so fucking stubborn, he told himself.

He didn't deserve the next image that burned into his mind. He wondered if he ever would. Rose removed the flowery comb that had been holding up her hair, which then cascaded down to her bare shoulders. The silken fabric of her yukata slipped off her shoulders and fell to her arms, like one of the garden waterfalls cascading down a slope. Was it wrong that he felt it framed her hips so much nicer when it was loose, revealing them to him in all of their curvaceous glory? Even when he wasn't completely himself he tried so hard to not see Rose as a golden goddess or a siren ( _his_ siren). But if he was being wholly honest, she was pretty fucking close to being perfect, and she had once actually proved herself to be deadly. Hell, she'd been the equivalent of a god at the time. And it wasn't just the ginger-goggled Doctor that felt this way.

He found out through these fever dream memories that Rose was coordinated enough to kiss him while slipping onto his throbbing length. Once he had her close he was smart enough to not let her go. He wished he could have been clever enough to shut up instead of running his mouth, praising her tightly clenched muscles and how divine she felt pressed against him (even if both of those things were true). He might have liked to tell her that he felt like the star in her sky. Maybe that would have been worse. He should have said something more profound as he was quite certain her hips rocking with his actually found the perfect rhythm, as if this adventure was no different than any other. He wished he could have expressed to her somehow that he felt they were in sync, locked together in the most perfect (even if not remotely profound) way.

But it would be her that would fulfill this role, of course. He couldn't believe his mind or his ears. There was no way, he told himself. He had no right to her affections, not in that state. He certainly didn't deserve to hear her heart's secret in his ears. She had no way of knowing how dreadfully cruel she was being. Would she have still told him if she knew? Would she have still murmured his new favorite song to him on a warm breath? _“I'm in love with you, Doctor.”_ Before he could move on he replayed these sweet honeyed words, drinking them in from her lips to his ear over and over until he felt lightheaded.

And of course she'd be so cruel as to utter these words right as he was reaching his peak. There was nobody to urge him to slow down for her, no gut to tell him to turn her over so he could reach between them to help her along. Please, let him have done enough. His hearts couldn't take much more of this torture. If not that, he could have said something, wrong moment for it or not. _Something._

 _Help her! Tell her! Do_ something _, anything!_

Dreams, memories, wishes, they all melted away into the carpets of Rose's bedroom all at once. They left a Time Lord curled up on the floor writhing with a skull-splitting headache the likes of which he hadn't felt since he last regenerated. Reaching into the recesses of his own mind wasn't the cleverest of ideas. But he had to see for himself the full extent of what he'd done. If Rose were to open her door right at that moment she'd see something resembling a pinstriped hedgehog-snake coiled on the pink plush carpet of her bedroom floor. And then she'd get sick, he wagered, because his morning sickness was returning with a vengeance, which meant hers must have been as well. It wasn't happy being ignored, he surmised.

“Rose..” he groaned. “I know what happened.”

This revelation was met with a huff, followed by a few unintelligible grunts and groans.

“Either way.. I ah.. I need the loo.. if you might open the door?”

He definitely heard her growl, and most certainly the familiar hurling cough associated with voiding her stomach. “You're going to have to wait!” she forced out a few moments later.

He wanted to protest further. And it'd be cleverer to run to the vacant room across the hall. He'd spent weeks being a right git, and a right git would be the one to run across the hall. He cursed his blindness, his self-absorbed pigheadedness. He refused to let reality sink in just yet, not until he could look Rose in the eyes.

“Is this how it's gonna be? Are you gonna look like a blimp at the end of this too?”

She caught him whimpering against the door, and nearly fell into her legs when she opened it. Instead, his head landed on the floor with a dull thud, making his stomach churn even further. It wasn't enough to keep him from skittering to his feet and dashing for the first sight of a porcelain bowl. He waited for her hand to rub his back as it always had, and to his surprise it did. This time it was joined by her face resting on his back, even as her stomach still lurched against his hip.

“I can try not to?” he answered as he flopped over. He took a few moments to right himself. No matter how much he willed it to stop, his head kept throbbing. But it was better than the walls of his stomach twisting and churning.

“I don't regret what we did that night.” Rose turned towards him as she leaned up against her bathtub. “Just that I didn't see that something was wrong. I feel like I took advantage of you, Doctor.”

The Doctor's hearts sank in his chest. His stomach should have been empty, but just the thought made new bile rise in his throat. “Rose, you did nothing wrong,” he reached out for her hand, and felt her warm calm trickling from her delicate skin to his calloused hand. “I didn't know that I was lying to you. But still.. I should have known better, realized what was going on. There was ginger in the tea we had. It's like.. oh I know!” She cleared her throat, and he sobered. “Like hypervodka.. but for Time Lords. With a touch of a mild hallucinogen.” He heard her take in understanding in a heaping breath. “And these weeks you let me think that I was ill. If anything I took advantage of you. How long have you known?”

Rose shook her head. “Since last night.” She paused and took a few more breaths, each one more labored than the last, until her final one hitched. “I didn't want to.. I didn't want to believe.. I didn't.. I didn't..”

Rose's mouth opened, but the only thing she could manage was gasps. He hushed her broken record by tugging her into his arms. It wasn't the worst place they'd ever had a hug or a bit of a cuddle. Some of the prison cells they'd occupied smelled like death. Rose's tiled floor, leaning up against her bathtub wasn't at all bad. Rose in his arms wasn't at all bad. The hyperventilating was, and made his hearts twist into knots, but he willed it away by holding her close. Her tears wet his shirt, her hair tickled his face, and her thighs blanketed his. The Doctor chose this little moment to let reality sink in. Beneath her dressing gown and a few layers of tissue was a little creature resembling a tadpole. _His_ tadpole. It was a tiny, wonderfully complex little thing smaller than his finger, and it was _hers._ After one union beneath a bed of fireworks and stars, they'd made it. It was _theirs_ , if she wanted it.

“It'll never happen again,” he whispered, a solemn swear even if it was mumbled into her hair.

“If.. if.. if you take me back home.. mum and I can work something out.”

He froze, but only for a heartsbeat. The Doctor pulled Rose's chin up and frowned. “You think that's what I want?”

“I know what you _don't_ want.”

He pulled her in closer, taking in as much of her warmth and tenderness as would be allowed. “I'm not going to dare you to try me. I'll just tell you right now that what I _don't_ want is to leave you behind, child or not. If you really..” he squeezed his eyes shut and uttered his next words on a sigh, “ _want_ to leave, I'll let you. But -”

She shook her head amidst several quick gasps of air. “I don't want to go. I want to stay with you.. I know it's.. we were both pretty stupid. But I don't want to go because of it.. And I'm not ready for this.. I don't want to do this alone. I want it to be with you..” And she wriggled in his arms. Each breath onto his chest was a little puppy yip. But her next words were louder than a bark, a howl bursting forth straight to his hearts. “I want to have the baby!”

He was so distracted with his hearts swelling with pride and love that he forgot to maintain his balance against the bathtub, and fell to the tile floor. His head was going to be smarting fiercely later. But Rose was looking his way, searching for his reaction. He couldn't smile wide enough, couldn't hug her tight enough, couldn't express to her how he was overflowing with warmth and joy that there was a little life blossoming between them. Something good could come of anything when Rose was with him, even when he'd made the worst mistakes. His thought was that he didn't for the life of him deserve her. That's not what he said.

“I'm in love with you,” he spoke into her forehead, and gave it a kiss. “I want to start over, Rose.”

“Is that a yes?” she looked up at him, those doe eyes diving right into his soul. Those were the ones he was weakest to, above all else.

Not that it mattered in this instance. “You'd make me the happiest, proudest father.. and whatever you'd like to call us enjoying more fireworks – sober.”

“Fireworks is good. I like fireworks. The last ones were alright.”

She sat up and grinned at him as she wiped away the rest of her tears. Her dressing gown fell down her shoulders and she straddled him, digging her hands into his chest.

“I suppose I deserve that.”

She cooed at him and pouted. “Care to light some more?”

He beamed up at her, and didn't remotely attempt to contain a buck of his hips. It was an answer enough.

“After I run to the galley to get some ginger,” Rose patted his chest and replied as she got to her feet with a groan.

He felt his eyelids widening in horror. “But..”

“What?” She looked down at him and fixed her gown back onto her shoulders. “My stomach still hurts. Just because you can't have any doesn't mean I shouldn't.”

He tore after her, not to be tricked into missing another moment. And though the Doctor didn't share in the ginger tea with Rose this time, they did share a good many “fireworks” after that, as Rose took to calling it. Rose told him again of her love for him, and given all that had happened between them he didn't feel he deserved it. But he vowed from then on to earn it. And when he met his – _their_ – son for the first time, the Doctor vowed to earn his as well. Though he wondered if his expectations were too high of them, given he felt a love for them both – his precious family – grander than any little fireworks show that their three lives truly began under.

 

 


End file.
